Rating: 
Summary: A Powerful and Concise Novel about Family Legacies
Review:
I've read and enjoyed Mr. Raphael's Nick Hoffman books but they didn't prepare me for this concise dynamo of a novel. The honed quality of its prose, the plot design, depth of characterization and richness of ideas owe far more to the conventions of American literary fiction than mystery genre fiction. The German Money is a wise and emotionally riveting work, and many of the scenes rise to such a fierce emotional pitch that I frequently had to stand and walk off the tension.
The primary mystery in The German Money isn't the classical mystery who did it and why of genre fiction, but the greater mystery of the painful emotional legacy passed from one generation to another. As you've no doubt gleaned from the reviews preceding this one, the central plot device involves the reunion of three children gathered to discuss the will left behind by their recently deceased mother. The daughter, Dina, is a beautiful, vindictive shrew with a touching affection for her befuddled and perpetually underachieving younger brother, Simon, whose inability to make a concrete decision is brilliantly framed by his bisexuality. Paul, the protagonist of the novel, has fled the family for the relative wilds of Michigan, where he works in a job that taps the smallest percentage of his talents as he avoids close relationships with those around him. Paul is not an unemotional protagonist; rather, he's a man who decided to disallow himself emotional fulfillment, the emotions working fervently below a stiff, almost paralyzed surface.
Mr. Raphael deftly illustrates in scene after scene how the characters of the children were deeply influenced by the pain and intense anger of their mother, but the novel never allows the characters to escape responsibility for their own choices. The final passage into adulthood involves not just our own acceptance of responsibility for who we are, but an understanding of who our parents are outside the parent-child relationship; to understand why our parents treated us as they did we must trace how they were formed by their time and by the limitations and gifts of their own characters. Mr. Raphael beautifully brings this notion to life in The German Money, the novel centering around Paul's struggle to come to terms with the heritage of a deeply troubled mother, and to move beyond it to lead his own life fully.
Rating:
Summary: A compelling read
Review: As a child of Holocaust survivors, I approached Lev Raphael's book with both eagerness and trepidation. Eagerness, because I have been an avid fan of his Nick Hoffman mystery series, and have always enjoyed the quality of his writing. Trepidation, because as the child of survivors, I have always had a difficult time dealing with this issues that created for me, vis-a-vis my relationship with my own parents. Not surprisingly, all of my expectations were fulfilled in The German Money. The book is tightly written, more of a novella than a novel, but is full of deftly drawn characters who come vividly to life. We see a family in shambles because of the secrets kept by Paul's mother. Who was she? Why did she keep herself hidden not only from her children, but from her husband? How did she accumulate such a fortune, and why did she leave it to the one person who overtly rejected her? Raphael creates an intellectual and emotional mystery, and the power of this book is that the mystery is only partly solved at the end. The reader is left to draw her own conclusion about some of the "whys", and this takes Raphael's book to a whole different level than the run-of-the-mill family saga or mystery. Although I found the book slow going in spots, it was more because I had to step away from it to process my own feelings rather than because of the quality of the writing or development of the plot. I strongly recommend this book to anyone who has an interest in the effects of the Holocaust not only on those who survived the horror but on the generations that follow them.
Rating:
Summary: A winning novel
Review: I don't think I can add much to the Washington Post review of Lev Raphael's THE GERMAN MONEY. It is an outstanding book and deserves all the praise it has been receiving. Some DorothyLers may not pick this book up since it isn't classified as a mystery, but it contains the elements of the greatest mysteries of all...the human heart and psyche.
Paul, has been almost estranged from his family for years. He moved from New York to Ann Arbor and the fact that he prefers Michigan to New York City is baffling to them. His two siblings have learned to cope in their own way with the bluster of their father and the seeming coldness of their mother, a Holocaust survivor. When Paul returns, shortly after his mother's death, he is astonished to learn that he inherits "the German money", restitution paid to Holocaust victims. He can not understand the motive for this since his mother never touched the money even though it was invested and grew to a tidy sum and certainly never showed him any love or affection.
Haunting and unforgettable, THE GERMAN MONEY is even better than I expected from Raphael, and having read his novel, short stories and JOURNEYS & ARRIVALS, I did expect a lot.
Rating: 
Summary: Intriguing
Review: I found 'The German Money' to be a fascinating exploration into the psyche of children born to survivors of the Holocaust.The author has created beleivable characters who are like people I might know with complex and contradictory personalities. The plot keeps you interested from the start, cleverly structured so that you keep wondering what the answer is to the 'big' question. This is the first of Lev Raphael's books I have read, and am sure to look for more! An enjoyable read.
Rating: 
Summary: ILL Conceived Novel
Review: I guess it is politically incorrect to criticize a novel about the Holocaust, but this one is so unbelievable that it deserves to be panned. The characters are all repulsive and the answer to the mystery of Paul's mother is only shocking because it makes little sense. The seed of a good idea is probably there, but is never really developed. Every one of the chacters is pathetic and the ending is totally unsupported by the storyline. The writing is at the English graduate student level.
Rating:
Summary: The Past Can Still Control Our Lives
Review: I will not go into the story line as others have done it better than I could. I will only say that the book is beautifully written, and says things about siblings and relationships that are universal and universally true. I could relate to the characters and the situations in which they find themselves. I was profoundly moved by The German Money, and highly recommend it.
Rating:
Summary: The Past Can Still Control Our Lives
Review: I will not go into the story line as others have done it better than I could. I will only say that the book is beautifully written, and says things about siblings and relationships that are universal and universally true. I could relate to the characters and the situations in which they find themselves. I was profoundly moved by The German Money, and highly recommend it.
Rating:
Summary: The German Money
Review: I wish I could give this book more than 5 stars. This is quite a change from the Nick Hoffman mysteries (which are also good).
Raphael has written an amazing story, with fully realized characters, lyrical prose, and a hell of a twist at the end!
The story of the brothers and sister coming to terms with their mother's death and the legacies she leaves is emotionally wrenching, cathartic, and described in loving detail without being sticky or overly dramatic. Highly recommended.
Rating:
Summary: Top-notch story-telling ... and what a twist!
Review: If you've not read much about the Holocaust, the twist in Lev Raphael's latest book, The German Money, is pretty strange. Hard to believe. Fantastical even. But if you're a Holocaust survivor, or the child of one, or happen to know much about the Holocaust and its aftermath in terms of the physical and psychological toll it took on its victims, this tale easy to believe. Raphael, a child of survivors, writes an emotionally-charged, raw and honest story with a shocking ending, but one that clearly ties up the question of why and how the mother died, and neatly ties up other parts of the story, too. It's an ending worth waiting for. Not that you'll skip ahead, mind you, you'll be much too busy turning the pages to find out what comes next. No doubt those familiar with Raphael's other work will compare The German Money with Winter Eyes. Having not read Winter Eyes prior to reading The German Money, I picked up my wife's copy of that book and read it. Powerful writing there, too. And while they tackle somewhat the same subject, each book carves out its own niche quite nicely. If you take the children of Holocaust survivors from Winter Eyes and mix in Raphael's mastery of mystery in the Nick Hoffman series, you get The German Money -- a gripping, well-drawn story that shows the emotional impact the Holocaust has on the children of the survivors, too. Raphael's gift for turns of phrase that sketch out dramatic characters and scenes is in full flower here, wrapped up in a package that I could barely put down while waiting for a delayed flight at Detroit's Metro Airport. I'm no fan of Northworst, as he and many Michigan residents know Northwest Airlines, but that five-hour delay gave me plenty of time to read. The German Money kept me so engaged and turning pages that I didn't notice the time go by.
Rating:
Summary: a thoroughly engrossing novel
Review: In his latest novel, The German Money, Lev Raphael succeeds where others have failed: he tackles the supremely difficult, complex and sensitive topic of being a child of a Holocaust survivor, and does so brilliantly, without reducing it to a single, oversimplified dimension. Paul, the main character in The German Money, is as human as the rest of us. It is easy to relate to him even as his experiences become more and more unusual. Paul is clever, witty, sad, confused, guilt-ridden and angry. As he struggles to cope with his mother's death, Paul is forced to confront the reality of his dysfunctional family, as well as his own well-repressed demons. His task is all the more daunting as Paul tries to make sense of the fact that his mother has left him an ungodly sum of money, i.e., The German Money. The deeper Paul delves into the mysteries of his family's past, the greater his confusion and the more urgent his need for answers. Lev Raphael effortlessly carries the reader on a very personal adventure of a man who wrestles with the ghosts of his family's past. And along with the main character, the reader is blindsided by the shocking, heart-stopping ending! The German Money is an intelligent, thought-provoking, emotionally charged novel. I could not put it down!
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